Tuesday, September 25, 2012

CARPTORIOUS: Falling Fast

I don't care when they officially say summer ends. My seasons are measured by the fishing and 'round these parts that means what I call the on-season starts to fade rapidly in late August / early September. The light starts to fade just a little as the sun rises and falls a little lower each day. The overnight lows start dropping fast and in the morning when you first hit the water a fleece is handy. The transition is always abrupt but this year it has been shockingly so as we transitioned from the hottest summer I can remember to fall weather seemingly over-night.

Sure, everything gets a little less predictable. Absolutely the takes get a little less aggressive and the fight a little more lethargic. For me though this is the start of big-fish season. I almost never catch big carp in our local river during the summer proper. Others appear to but it is hard to say if they are just better than I am or an smidge more full of crap. A little of both I suspect. Either way I am actually slightly more likely to catch big carp in the winter and much much more likely in the spring and fall.

And that is the real transition. The transition in me. I slowly start to think a little less about putting up numbers and think a whole lot more about putting up pounds. Not that I really managed to put up the same gaudy numbers this summer that I did last year for some reason, but this weekend the transition paid off.

19lb. Or pretty freaking big in layman's terms.

A maximum 12 second timer sucks. Thanks Olympus for nothing.

Of course not everything was peaches and cream. It has been years since I fished a 4 piece rod regularly. Evidently one should be in the habit of checking the bottom ferrule regularly. Whoops. The 19lber was a load and evidently that load loosened things up because on the next fish...BOOM. Boom is bad. And subsequently awkward.

Funny you should ask, just bought a new tape measure. Haven't been checking length for quite some while. I would guess 29" which is a mismatch. River fish are heavier per inch than still-water and a lake fish that length would go a pound or two lower, particularly this time of year.